Darkness of Birth Ficception
by Von
Summary: ((This is a fanfiction AU ending of njchrispatrick's story Darkness of Birth. PLEASE read that FIRST.)) Steve has found the birth certificate of the son Tony sent away.


This story is, as I have seen it called on the net, _ficception_. It is a fanfic of a fanfic. Specifically, **Darkness of Birth **by _njchrispatrick. _I strongly recommend you drop this right now and go read that fic first because a, this one is based on it and b, that one is so much better. Seriously, that's not false modesty, that's just the frank truth. It's a one-shot, it won't take long - g'wan!

Right.

This story is set around ten years after the above, shortly after the events of Avengers (which now happened in 1996). Canon timeline has been compressed to fit, meaning that Tony is 27(ish) and not the canon 51(ish). For reference, this would have made him (just) seventeen during the events of the original fic and around 25 during the events of Iron Man. I think that's workable.

Harry is 9-going-10.

The events of Iron Man 3 have not happened.

**DoB Ficception**

"Is this a _joke_?"

For just a fraction of a second, billionaire playboy philanthropist and genuine superhero Tony Stark, froze.

"Yeah, well, it was gonna be." He recovered, a hundred different possibilities spun through and considered by his subconscious before ever _reaching_ his conscious mind. The little square of yellowing paper, folded twice and forgotten in a drawer for almost a decade and now being brandished at him was an ugly reminder of one of the many things in his life that he'd rather forget.

**Steven Howard Stark**, the name of his son - no, the baby he'd been forced to have - was typed in bold font along the top, right next to his birth date and weight. Howard had been very thorough. Under it, in the space normally set aside for the mother, Tony's own full name and age had been printed. God only knew how much the old bastard had paid to get _that_ certified without issue.

But under the father…

**Steven Grant Rogers**.

Under 'relation to the mother', Howard had put 'sperm donor'. Next to his age, the word '**Deceased**' had been rubber-stamped.

It was humiliating, even ten years later. Remembering how it had felt, to be viewed as a defective possession by his own father. To be bodily experimented on, utterly without choice, an impossible blend of biology surgically implanted into his body to bring to term and then just as clinically removed.

He remembered the feeling of fresh stitches and old hate. Of fear and loathing and a decision just as reckless as it was ruthless - two words that would come to embody him later in life.

He remembered the last glimpse he'd seen of a bawling blonde-haired, brown-eyed baby, reaching two-month-old hands for him, unable to comprehend that the familiar face he associated with food and safety was abandoning him - forever.

He remembered, no matter how much he drank. Most days though, it was a memory he could live with. Fuck knew the kid had been better off growing up with whatever normal family he'd been placed with instead of with a 'father' that couldn't stand the sight of him and would probably treat him pretty much the same as Howard had treated _him_. Out of sight, out of mind, try not to fuck up too much in public you little shit.

"But Pepper put her foot down." He carried on without a hitch, turning away as if bored already. "Said it was 'bad taste' or something, I don't know. I wouldn't normally listen but - turns out the woman I'm sleeping with is also my CEO. Awwk-waard."

There was a long silence as the straight-edged Capsicle stared daggers at his back or prayed to god or whatever it was righteous walking American flags did when faced with flippant assholes like Tony Stark.

"…Okay then." The blonde said at last. Tony studiously didn't react, flipping through floating schematics like he had a hundred other more important things to be doing - which he _did_ - than having a conversation with Captain Patriotism about impossible children who didn't exist.

"…Dinner's up in ten minutes." Old Glory continued, still sounding slightly dubious. Jesus Christ, most days the guy struggled to believe JARVIS was really an AI because there wasn't a room full of tape-winding computers somewhere visibly storing him. It'd be fucking typical that the one time the idiot actually accepted something impossible existed 'because future science', would be now.

"I'm not hungry. Don't wait up, babycakes."

A more familiarly annoyed snort was his only answer before heavy footsteps carried the muscleboat away.

Tony locked the door behind him with a savage flick of his fingers and spent a solid five seconds considering and discarding potential ways this could all blow up in his face.

But no. He'd been careful. Been _thorough_. He'd planned for the baby to be lost even to Howard's wealthy reach so no defrosted soldier from the second world war was gonna find him - assuming the guy ever even decided the certificate was _real_. The Births, Deaths and Marriages register of New York hadn't begun digitalising their old records yet and Tony had an alert somewhere for if and when they ever did. And even if Captain Oldschool thought to inquire personally, he'd have to prove that he was not only the Steven Rogers on record but also, y'know, _not dead_. And _even then, _it'd be easy to claim that he'd slipped a fake into their records as part of the ruse. He'd certainly put more effort into other amusing lies.

…Maybe he ought to mail the BD&M storage facility something pyrophoric. Just in case.

He shook his head on a sigh and turned back to his work, swiping the whole bunch of useless schematics to the side and starting fresh. He had nothing to worry about. There was absolutely _nothing_ in modern medical science that could give Steve cause to believe there was even a long chance that two men could have a baby, or that one of them could carry it to term. The whole thing wasn't even worth thinking about - especially with _his_ brain.

_Damn_ the man for making him think about it at all.

_DoB F_

Steven Grant Rogers _almost_ believed the man.

Almost.

It was just… that pause. He hadn't known the man very long but what he _did_ know was… smooth. Polished. Razor sharp and lightning quick, never missing a step, always ready with a glib remark that made him wish he was still scrawny so it'd be okay to pick a fight with the infuriating ossified so-called genius.

But that pause. That had been… Tony's _face_ had just been… blank. And Steve's eye had been serum-enhanced enough to catch it.

_Why would it be blank_? He asked himself as he went back upstairs. It was just him, Natasha and Clint tonight. Tony was in his lab (he'd come to learn that 'don't wait up' meant 'you'll be lucky to see me again inside the week') and Bruce was out at a not-double-date with Betty, Jane and Thor. Every so often, everyone's phone beeped with snapshots of Thor tossing half a glass of wine into the air as he tried to give a(nother) toast or of Bruce edging his chair closer and closer to the exit.

_If it was a joke, even one he abandoned, he'd find it at least a little funny that I found it… right?_ He wondered, chewing his fancy Italian dish and barely tasting it as Clint and Natasha had an idle argument over who'd been shot the most. ("_Just because I don't cry about every little bullet wound Clint-" "I don't _cry_! I _count_!"_)

"Is there such a thing…" He heard himself asking before - realising he was asking - he cut himself off.

Too late. The squabbling agents and part-time Avengers had broken off to eye him, Clint with a hint of anticipatory glee. Steve sighed, resigned to giving at least one person even more ammo to mock him with.

"Two… fellas. Having a baby. Is that… possible?"

"You been listening to Stark again?"

"Заткнись, идиот." Natasha flicked a bit of mushroom from her dish directly into Clint's eye.

"Shit, bitch." Clint cursed, scraping his chair back as he went to wash it out.

"It's theoretically not _im_possible." Natasha said before Steve could finish reflexively frowning at that sort of language directed at a lady. "But theory is a long way from actuality. Why do you ask?"

He hesitated, the (fake?) birth certificate burning a hole in his pocket. If it really was a joke, Steve going to the others for answers was probably part of the setup. He'd make himself look stupid, Tony would laugh himself sick and Clint would bring it up again and again for months.

But. That _pause_. And, more than that:

He trusted his own instincts.

"This theory…" He asked slowly. "Would someone be able to manage it? Someone smart like Tony or Howard?"

Natasha frowned. Clint, coming back to the table and winking heavily to try and clear his eye of irritation, squinted at him like he wasn't sticking to script.

"Possibly." Natasha shrugged. "Both were geniuses - it was Howard who discovered the formula for 'Starkanium', as Tony calls it, but he lacked the tools to actually create it. If both had access to today's technology… I'm honestly not sure which of the two would be considered the better inventor."

"Damn, Nat," Clint winced "Don't ever let Stark hear you say that. That guy makes _my_ daddy issues look _healthy_."

The considering nod the redhead gave in return was a little troublesome but Steve persisted. There was a strange urgency coiling in his gut, like his hindbrain was way ahead of him and not happy to be there.

"So it _could_ be done?"

"Male/male childbirth could _theoretically_ be managed by taking a female egg, removing the female genetic material and replacing it with male." The spy continued briskly. "The error rate would be huge, but if you made enough attempts in a lab then you'd theoretically _eventually_ get a stable embryo which would then be implanted into a woman to bring to term - that's something we do already for male and female couples who either can't or don't want to birth their own kids."

"And the dame - I mean, lady - who carried the child. She wouldn't be the mother?"

"Not genetically." Natasha coiled some pasta on her fork. "The baby and carrier don't actually share blood - the baby just taps into her system for nutrients and waste removal. These days we call those women 'surrogates' and whether she has any involvement in the life of the child she gives birth to is something decided by all involved right at the start. Generally, contracts are written up to make the agreement enforceable if someone changes their mind later."

She popped the forkful in her mouth, doe-eyes pinning him with a look that demanded an explanation of his own in return for her prompt and detailed report.

He sighed, shoulders slumping.

"It's… stupid. Probably just a dumb joke Tony's playing on me. But, I found… this." He pulled the paper from his pocket. Unfolded it for them, expecting to be laughed at and at first, Clint's face _did_ crease like he was starting to grin…

Until it stilled. They both stilled, tranquil and utterly focused on an old bit of paper claiming something that couldn't possibly be true.

"Where did you get that?" Clint asked, uncommonly serious as he flickered a look to his partner and back.

"Found it in one of the boxes I'm helping Miss Potts sort through." Steve shrugged uncomfortably. "From their - I mean, Tony and Howard's - old mansion or something. She paid a company to just empty everything into boxes and personal effects were sent straight to the tower to be sorted. I figured he planted it for me to find."

"Probably did." Clint agreed, though his eyes kept skating over the paper. "If so, though, that's a hellava good fake. It's not as easy to age paper and ink - authentically - as you'd think."

The urgency in his gut coiled tighter, unsettled by their complete failure to laugh this off.

"Natasha?" He asked, demanded, command tone slipping into his voice.

The red headed woman looked up at him. Down at the paper. Then back at her food.

"I can check it out for you if you like." She offered, as bland as if the whole conversation was about an old brand of cereal. "It's probably just a pathetic attempt at a joke, even if it is a good replica. I'll have to let Fury know that Stark's good for something besides ego-mania and world defending."

"You mean with…" He waved his hand a bit. "Computers?"

Amusement glinted in her eyes. "Computers." She agreed. "Ground checks. SHIELD records. Shouldn't take more than a couple of days."

"Thank you." Steve's shoulders came down an inch in honest relief. Shaking his head at himself, he dug back into his rapidly cooling food. It was just a stupid prank and he'd been an idiot to even get this wound up about it. Natasha would let him know that Tony never did anything, even stuff like this, by halves and maybe Steve'd find time to switch out the man's shampoo for something a little more colourful in retaliation.

This wasn't real.

_DoB F_

"It's real." Natasha reported, wrapping her hands in one of SHIELD's New York gyms. Steve blinked at her for a full second before he realised-

"What? Wait, you mean-" He lowered his voice, glancing around for anyone who might overhear. "The _baby_?"

"Probably a pre-teen by now. Nine years old." The woman observed as she finished her prep and wandered closer. "I wasn't with SHIELD back then but it was around. It kept tabs on Howard Stark as a premier weapons developer - and founder, if you can believe it - and back in '87 they noted an aberration in his son's behavioral pattern." She lashed out with a kick he deflected more by reflex than anything else - and he paid for his inattention with a jarring throb of bruised bone. He could barely stop himself from gaping, even though this wasn't the first time the Black Widow had delivered shocking information to him during a spar. She called it 'training'.

"He didn't go back to MIT that year, even though he was only a year shy of graduating with two Masters. Around July, a watcher - just a newbie from what I could find - reported that Stark Junior made a few trips to a building that housed several companies, two of them industrial, and speculated that he was looking to step out of his father's shadow and find an outlet for his own work with an outside company. Nothing came of it. After a couple of weeks, he didn't visit again."

"But?" Steve asked as Natasha shimmied in close and all but writhed against him - he'd only been caught flatfooted by _that_ maneuver once. Okay, twice. This time, he caught the obvious blow, deflected the hidden stab and shamelessly used his strength to toss her a good two meters away before she could get him with anything electrified.

"But, one of the other companies quartered in that building - which wasn't in his report, because he was an unprofessional failure of an agent - was an internationally-linked foster agency."

Steve stopped moving. Courteously, Natasha didn't punish him for it by knocking him briefly out.

"…You think… he was getting rid of a baby?"

The woman shrugged.

"He was reported as carrying a 'bag', the first and last time. I couldn't find anything definitive about any surrogate but not only is there a steep deficit on record for Tony's personal account at the time - possibly ensuring him speedy service - there was another much more obvious record of money moving between Stark _senior_ and various local legal groups - including the BD & M office and a judge - about two months prior."

"Over all," The spy was watching him carefully now, like he was a bomb primed to go off. "Tony was out of school for just over nine months. His parents died in a car crash the night of his last visit to the aforementioned building and he resumed school at the start of the next semester."

Steve tried to imagine it. Tried to imagine Tony and some dame - maybe a member of staff or a volunteer or some woman down on her luck who needed some money - spending nine months together shut up in a mansion as Howard defied science once again and spliced two fellas' genes together to make a baby.

"But… _why_?" His brow furrowed. "I don't understand. Why would - why would _anyone_-?"

Natasha shrugged. "You'd have to ask him that. Or Stark. Maybe Senior wanted something of Captain America to live on and Junior didn't. The only one left alive to know is Tony." She patted his shoulder then punched him - widow bite and all - in the jaw. He hit the ground with a curse and rolled away from her follow-up groin-stomp.

"Anything on the mother- I mean, the dame who..?" He punched, yanked back, caught her wrist and bent it, ducked under a swiping thigh that sought to choke him and shoulder-rushed her to break her guard.

"Nothing." Natasha danced back. She was stronger than a normal woman but nowhere near his level. She was _much_ more highly trained however, and flexible, and their reflexes were roughly similar though she had an edge on him for speed. It usually made for very energetic matches. "No staff mysteriously vanished or received large bonuses, no missing persons of the time linked to the movement of Stark or any of their prople. It _was_ '87 though. Records then were nothing like now."

"I'll just have to ask Tony." Steve decided, taking a ringing blow to the side of his head in order to deal a numbing strike to his opponent's thigh, temporarily stopping blood flow and deadening the leg.

"Better you than me." The redhead allowed her weight and damaged leg to drop her, punching twin pinpoint strikes into his ankles that had him dropping right after her. By mutual unspoken agreement, they stayed down.

Dammit. Another tie.

_DoB F_

"Tony? Can I-. I mean, I need to ask you something."

Tony took one look at him and swore. Long, loud and more obscenely than anything he'd ever heard in the trenches. He even had that one French brothel beat.

Barely.

"I'm guessing you know what I'm gonna ask then." Steve soldiered on. The birth certificate was back in his pocket, almost a talisman even as some part of him still believed (hoped) this was all just the latest joke he was being made the butt of.

Tony didn't answer, just stared at him with dark eyes colder than he'd ever seen them before - even that first day on the Helicarrier when they'd almost come to blows. Tony had intensely disliked him then. _This_ was something closer to hate.

As two moving-arm robots spun around to stare at him too, Steve had the sudden thought that maybe forcing a conversation in the man's workshop hadn't been the best of ideas. Depending on what had happened to the lady who might have carried their child (he stumbled over the still-strange thought), it could be that the Starks were not unused to 'vanishing' the odd nosy parker.

It shamed him a little to admit it, but he wasn't quite sure enough of Tony yet to say whether he was _like that_ (like many wealthy men in Steve's time) or not. For now, though… he was pretty sure his own very public status would protect him if he were.

"The certificate. It's not a fake, is it?"

Tony stared. It wasn't blank this time. Dark eyes practically burned with calculation and fury. Still, he didn't speak.

"I asked Natasha." Steve ventured into the silence, stubbornly making it clear that he wasn't going to just shut up and go away. Not about this. Not if it was _real_. "She said it was theoretically possible for two fellas to… you know. And that, if anyone could have done it back then, it'd be Howard. Or, you, I guess, but you were… um."

"I was seventeen." Tony filled in, each word precise and bitterly cold.

Steve ducked his head. Nodded. For the first time, he realised that Tony might not have wanted to miss out on a year of school. That maybe Howard had forced him to stay to keep things quiet or support the mother maybe. It still didn't make up for the fact that Tony had just _gotten rid_ of the baby - Steve burned every time he thought about that, those visits and the money that greased the way for the baby to be abandoned - but he had to admit that it wasn't a black and white situation.

He took a breath, reminding himself that that was why he wanted to _talk _to Tony about it. To find out what happened. To be non-judgmental and non-accusative and…

And, if he was being honest, to find out what had happened to the woman who had given birth to… God, to his _son_. His and _Tony's_ son.

His and Tony's son who Tony had _given up_.

"That… must have been hard." He offered, remembering his time overseas. Plenty of guys, in his command or not, had gotten all kinds of upsetting letters. 'Dear Johns' weren't the worst. Others had their gals birth some other fella's baby. Still more _lost_ their babies and both sides blamed themselves or each other for it. He knew he couldn't understand their pain till he felt it himself, not _really_, but he had some experience at being there for at least the guy half of the equation. He just needed to treat Tony like one of those guys going through a rough time that nobody ever taught you how to deal with.

Tony just snorted, mocking and hateful and derisive all at once.

"I was just wondering…" He tried. "Well, a few things, actually. Some, I guess, are none of my business - like why you gave him up."

"You're damned right it isn't." Tony muttered viciously. Steve quelled his reflexive ire.

"…but I was hoping you could tell me… what happened to the lady who. You know. Carried the baby?"

This time, the stare he got was incredulity pushed beyond all reasonable bounds. Mind switched off, sheer I-can't-believe-it's-possible-to-be-this-stupid blankness.

"There wasn't one." Tony sneered at last, hands shaking as he finally released one of his gauntlets from a white-knuckled grip. "Good 'ole Dad cooked it up the lab."

Steve frowned.

"Are you sure? I mean," He hurried on before the genuinely-stupid question could be answered. "Natasha said that although fellas can be sort of… spliced into parents, we still can't create an artificial womb yet. I'm not sure why we can do one but not the other but Natasha was pretty sure and you were here for like nine months so I figured-"

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Tony _shouted_. "FUCK! Fucking _**fine**_! It was me. Y'happy? My obsessed, deranged, _bastard_ of a father found out the same thing. An artificial womb wasn't working, even after he got a successful blend of DNA in the lab. So you know what he did? He thought 'hey, I've got a good-for-nothing son lying around, why not keep this in the family?' and called me home for the break. Threatened to cut my funding if I didn't - but what the fuck did I care? I could get a scholarship easy, even if he fucking _disowned_ me, which he wouldn't so long as I was his only son - narcissistic prick wanted to keep everything in the blood, after all. But when that didn't work? _He went after Dummy_. The sonnova_bitch_ sent some fucking low-level _thugs_ to break him, to _destroy _him. Not just 'cause he was mine but because he was _sentient_. Not JARVIS-level, sure - but Dummy was self-aware and that fucker would have _murdered him_ to get his way."

He snorted bitterly, dropping to sit against his workbench.

"Of _course_ I fucking went home. Next thing I know? I'm waking up with stitches in my gut and my old man's patting himself on the back for pioneering a way for males to carry _children_. Simple enough, he says, just take a woman's womb from someone who matches my blood type, splice it into my vascular system and suppress my immune response and hormone production until it takes. Pop in the lab-grown cells, prod the whole thing with another dose of hormone and the baby basically runs the whole show by itself. Good ole Dad was always ready with another IV cocktail to make the growth environment 'optimal' - and restraints when I got 'unreasonable' about it all. Nine months later and another surgical invasion of my body and the whole thing's gone. Little blonde-haired baby, mad scientist Dad patting himself on the back and me expected to drop everything to care for it - at least until Dad could be sure it didn't inherit any of my 'defects' which, let's face it, were mostly behavioral as far as he was concerned."

The revulsion was fresh, the hate strong enough to paint with, but the fury slowly dulled - as if Tony was finally purging himself of it after ten years of bottling it up and hiding it away.

The genius sighed, waving a hand that was more tired than flippant, fire down to searing embers once again.

"Go on then. Go find it if you can, but I'm telling you: It's better off wherever it is. Even if Dad hadn't died that night - growing up like _I_ did isn't good for _any_ kid. And now? With me Iron Man and you Captain America? That kid's gonna have a target on his back the size of India. Do both of you a favour and don't even go looking. Seriously. There are people out there who will _notice_ - and even if they don't know what it is you're looking for, they'll try to find it before you do." He turned around, more to put his back to Steve and the whole situation rather than resume work.

"…He." Steve corrected. "Not 'it'. Our son-"

"He is _**not my son**_." Tony bit out, back still turned but shaking with furious strength. "He might have some of my DNA, but as far as I'm concerned, I was just an unwilling surrogate. If you want to find the kid? Fine. But _leave me out of it_."

Silence fell, loud with the humming of fans and machinery that normally fell below notice.

"…I'll do that." Steve kept his temper by a fine thread. "But Tony… if I find this kid and you change your mind later-"

"I won't." The other man cut him off. "JARVIS? The captain was just leaving."

"_If you would, Mister Rogers." _Tony's AI answered dutifully, the lacking honorific of 'Captain' showing just whose side the sentient machine was on, regardless of what he personally thought of the matter - assuming JARVIS was even _capable_ of forming an opinion of something like this. Steve had been human his whole life and was _still _struggling with it.

The door slid open for him. He stalked out, wishing it was possible to slam it.

He pretended not to notice as JARVIS locked every single door he passed through behind him.

_DoB F_

In 1987, Tony Stark had taken great (and expensive) measures to ensure that the baby he'd carried wouldn't be findable by his father - a man with much more money and far greater reach. In 1987, if Howard Stark hadn't died the night Tony sent the baby away, he might still have failed.

But it wasn't 1987. It was 1996 and census data had been some of the first things to be digitised all over the world. They had a list of the European countries the foster organisation Tony had used was tied to and access to all citizen data for each. There was no 'Steven Howard Stark' listed anywhere (of course) but of the blonde-haired, brown-eyed males who were listed as being both born in 1987 _and_ adopted, there were only three.

Two of them were connected to registered adoption agencies.

One of them was not.

_DoB F_

"It can't be this easy." Steve objected, sitting squashed in the back of a local SHIELD van as Clint fed live footage of a school (he was mobile surveillance) and Natasha disappeared to dig up some local physical records.

"Easy?" Clint muttered under his breath as he pretended to be a parent waiting for a pre-primary student (a child had been provided by a local contact to assist in the ruse and minimise accusations of Clint being a sexual predator). "I know computers look pretty amazing to a guy from the 40's, but seriously? There's a whole bunch of crap they can _not_ do. Like _find_ a kid whose home address doesn't actually _exist_."

"But you did find him." Steve returned with implacably logic. "Obviously. That's why we're here."

"We got lucky." Natasha refuted from wherever she was, th faint sound of rustling paper backing her voice. "There's no such place as 'Godric's Hollow' and 'James Potter' is such a common name it's not even worth looking up - but his wife recording her _maiden_ _name_ on the baby's naturalised citizenship certificate?"

"Made the difference." Clint agreed. "If it weren't for that, we'd still be sitting around with our thumbs up our asses. But, of the twenty thousand odd Lily Evans in the right age range to be legally allowed to adopt an infant, only twenty three are married to a Potter-"

"Most whose first or middle name is 'James'." Natasha cut in, irritation plain.

"But only one whose maiden name was Evans. From there we found her parents, deceased, her sister, married, and her son-"

"_My_ son." Steve corrected. The camera image moved as Clint shrugged.

"And her adopted son," Natasha stepped in smoothly "listed as the legal dependent of her sister, Petunia Dursley. They send their boys to this school and here we are."

"Here we are." Steve echoed, palms sweating slightly as he realised ye again that any time now, he'd get his first glimpse of the nine-year-old (soon to be ten) boy who was just as much his son as if Tony had been a woman and Howard (he couldn't believe his old friend could do such a thing - but he had) had used normal fertility treatments to impregnate her with the samples of Steve's semen taken so long ago.

Steven Howard Stark. He'd thought about that name a lot, trying to imagine a blend of himself and Tony. Failing that, he'd tried to imagine what it might look like if he had a little brother after his mother remarried into the Stark line. For a guy like him who used to dream of drawing for a living it was oddly difficult. Maybe it was because every name his son had was so loaded with prior meaning. Steven was his own face in the mirror, Howard was a slick mustache and confidence tied to jittery over-caffeinated over-work. It came a little easier when he'd started thinking about the kid by his adopted name - Harry Steven Potter. It made him… cleaner, somehow. More of a blank canvas for his mind's eye to paint on a head of yellow-blonde hair - straight like his or thick and wild like Tony's? - and brown eyes. Maybe snapping, laughing, too-smart-for-his-own-good eyes or maybe softer, calmer, steadier eyes of a solid personality.

"And heeeere they come." Clint warned as a bell rung shrilly into the mid-afternoon air. The school rumbled, hundreds of small voices calling out and shrieking as they gathered bags and hats and ran outside to waiting family. Clint grabbed his assigned child and set him on his hip, making a show of asking him how his first day went and what they did, patiently waiting for the flow to pass and keeping a sharp eye out for any blonde-haired kids of around the right age in the school's blue-and-grey uniform.

"Him." Steve identified instinctively, uselessly pointing at one of the kids on the screen. "Clint - two o'clock. Uh, tucked-in but too-big shirt. Baggy pants. Scuffed shoes. Kind of curly hair - y'see him?"

"I see him." Clint confirmed, hoisting his borrowed kid onto his shoulders and strolling after the kid who was escaping school with his head ducked down and hands fisted in the straps of his ratty schoolbag. "You sure though? He looks a little too young."

"It's him." Steve confirmed. _He'd_ been small for his age too. Small and skinny and walking around with his head down just like this little kid because back then he hadn't learned yet that bullies never stopped chasing you if you ran.

_His kid was used to running._

"Okie dokie." Clint chirped, passing his borrowed kid off to a waiting agent once they were a block or so away from the school. A shift in body language and stride changed him instantly into a passive-aggressive commuter who wasn't looking forward to the long ride home. He followed Steve's son without for a second _looking_ like he was. He, and Steve, saw as a small pack of schoolboys - obviously some of the first to escape school for the day - barged out of a little shop, ice creams in hand and directly into Harry's path.

The pack froze as they caught sight of the skinny boy. Harry didn't. He dodged sideways into traffic, fast enough to startle a curse from Steve as he barely avoided being hit by a car - which screamed to a halt just in time to block the path for the bullies following him. Clint slipped away, keeping them in sight, too well trained to interfere without a direct order - especially when a bunch of kids might knock their target around but wouldn't actually kill him or do permanent harm.

"Keep running, freak!" One boy shouted after their fleeing victim to a general chorus of laughing agreement.

"Loser!"

"Fag!"

"Dumbshit retard!"

Harry just kept running. Down the street, around a corner into an alley - Clint, following on the other side of the road and with longer legs, caught him react instantly to an old rubbish bin placed against the wall, swinging it around and placing it behind him directly in the corner's blindspot.

Several seconds later, the lead boy of the chasing pack ran right into it, falling with a clattering howl. By the time his dithering friends made the decision whether to continue chasing their target or go find a grownup for their bawling friend - Harry was gone.

Clint followed.

Steve consciously uncurled his hands, waiting for the little crescent bruises in his palm to heal.

The agility and shifty-eyed wariness with which his son was moving was alarming. It made him think more of Natasha than himself. _He'd_ been a wary kid but this was wariness paired with something else.

_Maybe intelligence?_ He thought after a while, watching through Clint's feed as his son deliberately muddied any trail his would-be tormentors might follow. When he thought of it that way, he couldn't help but see the similarities Harry had to his other father. His slender stature could just as easily be his Tony's childhood build rather than Steve's malnourished one. He was undeniably quick on his feet and his dark eyes - glimpsed occasionally as Clint ranged into shops or onto rooftops to continue tracking him - were set into a face that was almost Tony's in miniature.

His tiny mouth was set into a grim little line any time either man glimpsed it. His eyes darted, much more often than was normal for anyone let alone a child. He must normally be bullied - or pursued - much more aggressively, to exhibit such practiced mannerisms.

It made Steve's gut clench. This - _this?_ - was the better life Tony'd assumed his son would have?

_(That wasn't fair, he knew, but __**this**__ wasn't fair to __**their son**__ either.)_

It wasn't long before Harry wound his way to a library. It wasn't the local Surrey one but a larger and older building several blocks away. The street was reasonably busy outside it with after-school groups passing it by or excursions leaving and none of the kids wore the same uniform as Harry. Did he have friends in other schools? Steve's heart and hopes lifted, grateful that his son's life wasn't so bad that he had no-one at all.

It plummeted again as the camera feed showed Harry ducking after a larger group - then turning away from them in favour of the bin they'd just passed, from which he pulled a half-full cup of something that was still steaming and - after a brief inspection - gingerly pulled out a mostly-wrapped muesli bar some kid had obviously not appreciated finding in their lunch box. The dumpster-diving was almost professionally quick and smooth, in-and-out to minimise witnesses and unwanted attention.

It meant he'd been doing it for far too long.

_Even __**once**__ was once too many._ Steve thought fiercely as phantom stomach cramps made him feel sick. _He'd_ done it more than a few times after his mother died. Bucky's mother did her best but times were hard and Steve was a starving kid who was always sick. He'd had a roof over his head and occasional medicine and he'd been genuinely grateful. But that was _then_.

This was almost _fifty years_ later. In _England_! One of the best things _about_ the country was its social service system that cared for those who couldn't care for themselves. There was no reason a kid like Harry should feel he had to dig food out of the trash…

Unless he wasn't getting enough at home. And, like his father, was just too hungry _not_ to.

That moment, right there, watching his son lift a woman's discarded coffee cup and dart to crouch behind a car so he could transfer the contents into a thermos in his bag - for later, maybe? - was the moment he decided, come Hell, HYDRA or high water…

He was taking his son home.

_DoB F_

Eventually, Harry seemed to gather enough food. Some - the more perishable items like the third of a salad roll and quarter of a croissant - he ate immediately before taking a long drink from a public drinking-fountain outside the library. The rest was tucked deep into his bag before the boy entered the building.

Clint changed his clothes, hair, facial scruff and personality before mooching on in as a low-income man looking for jobs in the free paper. He wandered about until he found a free chair that gave his attached camera a good view of Steve's son.

Harry was doing his homework.

The sight brought a small smile to Steve's lips. He almost wished Tony could be here (hadn't reacted so violently against even the thought of claiming this kid) because the way Harry's brow lowered in concentration was a mirror image of his engineer father's. The speed with which the boy worked through his assignments was also very telling of where half his DNA had come from. Only once had the boy needed to consult his textbook and even then it seemed to be more a 'checking I'm right' situation than 'finding the answer'.

Homework done, Harry packed it away - and finally seemed to lose a bit of that too-old tense control as he wandered the non-fiction aisles and picked books out at seeming random.

"Bee-keeping." Clint identified at a murmur that the mike - high tech thought it was - barely picked up. "Gardening. And a Haynes repair manual - Ford Fiesta. Wow. Just when I was starting to think he might be looking at something _cool_."

"Ford Fiesta is one of the most common cars on the road right now." Natasha chipped in unexpectedly - Steve had completely forgotten she was still 'wired in', at least for sound. She often muted her mike unless she had something to say and, unlike in the war, the range she could get and still be 'in the loop' was massive.

"How do you _know_ that?"

"How do _you_ _not_ know that, Clint? We're only _trained_ to blend in to any situation at short notice. Knowing which cars to boost is part of that."

"Meh. I go for the flashiest. I figure they'd never expect me to, right? And if they'd never expect me to because it flies in the face of common sense, they won't even look once! I win!"

A sigh and Natasha's end was muted once more.

Harry went back to his chair and opened all three books, delving into one and then the other seemingly at random. Steve wondered if he got bored focusing on one thing for too long. He wondered if these were his son's interests or just a way to pass the time - and if they _were_ his interests, how he could help encourage them when he got Harry home.

He wondered if Harry knew the Ford Fiesta was a common car and, with his other father's typical intelligence, was trying to arm himself with the most useful knowledge needed to get a job just as soon as he could.

As far as Steve was concerned, that wouldn't be for at _least_ another ten years. Unless Harry _wanted_ an after-school job.

And kept his grades up.

And it wasn't because he was afraid of being left to fend for himself.

Time passed. Harry remained in his seat, working his way through his books until just before 6pm when the people around him were starting to move en mass to the exit at which point he packed up, used his school library card to take his books out and set off into the twilight - and not towards home.

Clint trailed him again along another path that seemed designed to throw any (prepubescent) followers off until they reached a run-down area in the next suburb over from Little Whinging. Nearby construction meant that local homeless or hoodlums had moved on (construction companies employed private security and violent dogs to protect their products) leaving the area relatively safe even as its appearance put off most normal law-abiding people.

Harry had a little hidey-hole under an old condemned bridge - the most structurally sound part, Clint reported with a sort of reluctant admiration. Barred from traffic and taped-off, it'd probably be knocked down soon after the construction was finished but in the mean time - judging by the reduced sag in Harry's bag upon leaving - the kid seemed to be using it to store both food and library books.

"Food's one thing." Clint muttered, seeming to read Steve's increasingly darkening mind. "A kid who doesn't dare bring library books home does _not_ have a good one to go to."

A sudden noise made Steve nearly jump out of his skin. A second later, Natasha swung herself into the front seat and shut the van door behind her.

"School reports." She dropped a folder over the back of her chair into Steve's waiting hand. "Medical reports." Another, slimmer folder. "Family's financial history." A much thicker file that he put aside for now. "And CPS records."

His heart stuttered. He abandoned the school reports (tested brilliantly but almost never handed in homework or major assignments) for the CPS folder.

There were no less than sixteen 'cause to open case' reports within. Each was worded as though it was the first, despite the fact that the file obviously had prior activity. The dates ranged over almost the entirety of Harry's life and not a single one included his home address or guardian's names. There were spaces, in the blocks of text, as though the information _had_ been written but then _erased _somehow instead of redacted with ink like in the army.

"Is there-?"

"A way to remove text completely without leaving a mark?" Natasha shook her head and started the van, pulling out into thinning evening traffic. "Not that I know of - and if there were, why would it be used for CPS reports? Why not just steal or burn them entirely?"

"And why hasn't anyone _noticed_ a file with multiple reports but no follow-up?" Steve finished. There was something fishy going on. That small, ugly part of him which had wondered if Howard and/or Tony had been involved in 'vanishing' some poor surrogate girl now wondered if Tony knew more than he let on and had been applying 'pressure' to keep Harry where he was.

But… no. No, that was too far - even for Tony. _Especially_ for Tony. The man was an ass but he wasn't… wasn't _evil_ enough to make a child suffer like that, not even to keep him hidden.

Harry's medical file was barely even worth existing. One broken arm at aged four and a record of state-and-school provided immunisations during primary school.

"Several are missing." Natasha contributed without taking her eyes off the road. "Mostly infant and early childhood - although that might be because his original adoptive family had him back then and their records weren't forwarded."

"Maybe." Steve echoed, putting it aside in favour of the Dursley's financial folder. Natasha had clearly combined several sources to make this up for him as it included bank statements, tax returns, government concessions and a 'secret' account under Petunia's maiden name that held a tidy sum. She'd even gone through and highlighted several points where money had come in from an account with no name or identifying number. It wasn't a _huge_ amount but it was regular and didn't exist until - presumably - the day Harry had come to live with them.

"Do we have a date for his arrival?" He asked, evidence of his son's wreck of a life in his hands and him too late to have prevented it.

"Locals on Privet drive - address was removed from his school file too, but not his cousin's file - say he was dropped on their doorstep as a baby some time late 1989. Several remembered being woken by his aunt's screaming. That would put him at approximately-"

"A year and half old." Steve whispered. "And his - adoptive parents? Any new information?"

"A drunk and a whore, apparently." Natasha pulled off the main road and into a quiet little cul-de-sac. "Or that's what Petunia and her husband have been telling everyone. They died in a car crash that, near as I can find, doesn't seem to exist - and no death records exist for the parents either."

"He's home." Clint reported abruptly. "And his family is _so_ fucking lucky I'm not armed."

"Why, what happened?" Steve demanded.

"Not much, relax." Clint drawled, but still with that hard edge that spoke of restrained violence. "His buttwipe of a cousin snuck up behind him and shoved him as he was taking his shoes of - he hit the china cabinet and his guardians seem really concerned - about their fucking _china_. The blinds are closed but last I saw before the door shut, they were letting him have it at the top of their lungs and his uncle slapped him on the side of his head at least once."

A sound of pure fury escaped him.

"Calm down." Natasha ordered him, her own voice unusually hard. "The last thing we need is Captain America arrested on foreign soil for assault - or murder. We do this _smart_ or not at all."

Jaw clenched, Steve nodded sharply. She wasn't telling him anything he didn't know but _Jesus Mary and Joseph _- that was _his son_ in there. His son, undersized and skittish and eating out of the _garbage_ and only going home when he absolutely had to, where he was shouted at and assaulted.

Oh, they'd do it smart all right. And when Harry was out of that house and _safe_, he'd sell his damned _soul_ to SHIELD if that was what it took to get his son some good old-fashioned American _justice_.

_DoB F_

The grating built into his door shot back and forth, light flashing into his cupboard in an unmistakable signal to get out.

His family had finished eating. It was time to do the dishes.

He sighed as he tucked his drawings (he was trying to recreate the schematics of the car he was studying this week) under his mattress - then froze, glancing warily over his shoulder. Whenever his family heard him sighing - or making any involuntary sound really - they smacked him one for ungratefulness or attitude or maybe just for reminding them that he existed. It was hard to tell some days - in more ways than one.

He'd only been five when they'd deafened him, after all.

He climbed out of his cupboard, careful to shut the door gently since he couldn't hear it properly to judge otherwise. His world wasn't totally silent - just very, verymuffled. He couldn't make out words - ever - and could only occasionally pick up on tones. It was good enough to know they were shouting at him but never good enough to understand what they _wanted_ - which just led to smacks for being bad, even _after_ they seemed to understand that he really couldn't _hear_.

He'd tried to learn how to read lips but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia hated it if he looked anywhere but their eyes or his shoes - and _he_ was starting to hate how it made _him_ feel anyway. The few times he'd tried it at school, kids had laughed at him.

Worst of all was that he knew he sounded… weird. When he talked. He could feel the vibration of his voice but it was just a mosquito of sound in his ears. Sometimes his teachers would frown and gesture for him to speak up, only to then frown and gesture for him to quiet down. Sometimes when he spoke, especially when he was reading aloud, they didn't seem to understand what he was saying at all. And even though he always did really well on every test they gave him… everyone thought he was stupid.

He _wasn't_ stupid.

He wasn't.

_DoB F_

"I've got thermal on all windows."

"Audio pickups in every exterior room. Starting recording: now."

Natasha and Steve fell into watchful silence. On comms but preferring to watch manually rather than through a feed, Clint fell silent too.

They watched, and listened, as the small family went about their evening - enjoying dinner, fawning over their son, rattling something then retiring to the living room as someone - presumably Harry - quietly cleaned the kitchen behind him.

Natasha passed the supersoldier a stress ball to squeeze before he broke his own hands.

It split in two after Dudley told his parents that Harry had pushed some friend of his into traffic and Vernon didn't even bother to shout - just hit the silent boy in the kitchen three times before throwing him somewhere - an internal room probably - and rejoining his family at the front of the house.

"…You know," Natasha observed tranquilly. "If a Good Samaritan were to burst into a house on fire and rescue a small child, I could arrange the fire."

Steve took a very long breath.

"…Maybe later." He managed to refuse. It wasn't easy.

_DoB F_

The next day was a Saturday. The trio had taken shifts to get some sleep the night before, although Steve at least hadn't caught a wink.

Last night's pattern continued with Dudley lavished with attention and Harry barely even spoken to at all, except insultingly. 'Thick' 'Stupid boy' 'Worthless freak' and 'retard' were tossed around with the ease of habit as a small thermal smudge moved gingerly around his family and obeyed the orders that were given to him like he was a particularly slow dog.

Dudley was out the door by 10am to hang out with his friends and a tittering Petunia - rake thin in a way that emphasised her bones as unflatteringly as her husband's bulk hid his own - followed soon after for 'tea with the girls'. For a long, deadly moment, Steve feared that Vernon was staying behind to… do _something_ to Harry. Fortunately for all involved (especially Vernon, because Steve would have murdered him and damn the consequences) the walrus of a man just lazed about on the sofa roaring along to the football match on tv as Harry fetched him snacks and drinks. Thirty minutes later he was snoring and Harry slipped out the back door.

Clint followed him to his little hidey-hole under the defunct bridge where the boy stayed most of the day, snacking on his stored food and reading. Natasha and Steve observed as Petunia returned from tea, blistered the air with an actual _list_ of domestic work 'the boy' had skipped out on doing and had a long agreeable conversation with Vernon over the worthless waste they'd taken in and how he couldn't even do the bare minimum to show respect for their kind allowance.

Vernon went on record as saying 'it's the cupboard for a week this time Pet - no food. It's not like he hadn't gone longer and God knows the unnatural freak's a lot more respectful after'.

Petunia had only agreed.

"This _has_ to be enough." Steve muttered, as Clint reported Harry on his way home around dusk. "We've got audio evidence of violence, thermal of exclusion and poor treatment and nearly a _book_ of verbal abuse. What more do we need?"

"A better plan than just dropping our evidence into the authorities." Natasha replied curtly. "Or have you forgotten the _sixteen_ reports that seem to all be ignorant of any prior incident - even the ones filed by the same person."

Steve snapped around to stare. He'd missed that, the first time he'd looked. Natasha tilted her head, confirming.

"…If they're… compromised somehow…" He groped for an answer. "Why would they even make a report at all?"

"It wouldn't be the first time we've come across something that makes a person's memories and/or morals… a little more flexible." The answer came from Clint. Even Steve could tell that he was talking about more than just Loki and his staff.

'_It's not the first time we've dealt with this'_, Natasha had soothed him back then, thinking Captain America too far to hear - or trusting him not to use it against them later.

"Mind manipulation." He stated, half disbelieving. "To keep a _child_ in a bad situation?"

Eyes belonging to a lifelong killer met his.

"It wouldn't be the first time, Cap. Not by a long shot."

He swallowed tightly. Accepted the new input. Adapted his plan to match.

"Alright. This is what we do…"

_DoB F_

_Knock knock knock._

Petunia Dursley opened the front door at 10am on a Sunday morning expecting to see some religious nutjobs trying to lure them away from their perfectly normal Christianity. Honestly, what decent person went to a stranger's house and harassed them into… into changing…

A very large, very _handsome _man stood framed in her doorway. There was a pair of people behind him but she barely even noticed as the sculpted perfection - lit from behind like an angelic halo - smiled at her and said something.

"What?" She asked inelegantly.

"I said, I'm very sorry to bother you ma'am. May we come in?"

"We?" She echoed faintly, already stepping aside for the man who, now that she thought about it, looked sort of familiar.

"Hey!" Some other man snapped as she almost shut the door in his face.

"Get out of the doorway you idiot." She hissed back. Oh, the _nerve_ of some people. The absolute _cheek_. Hanging about in the way and then complaining? She turned away from him to the handsome one.

"Won't you all rest your feet in the parlour?" She sang, eyes riveted to the blonde man standing stiffly in her living room. Yes, yes, she _knew_ those cheekbones, those arms… who was he? Someone famous obviously, he certainly wasn't from privet drive. The other two people were probably his attendants - maybe she'd inherited something? Oh! Or maybe she was _related_ to him which, was unfortunate since he was a very handsome man but being a relation wouldn't be such a bad thing either and he probably had many handsome friends who'd be _much_ better for a woman like her than Vernon…

She found herself in the kitchen, beaming into the open fridge. Movement at her elbow snapped her attention down to her horrible nephew Harry - whose black hair and green eyes had faded away within months of being dumped on their doorstep. Who who even knew if he was _human_ and not some sort of changeling fairy child or something equally unnatural - or _worse_.

"_What are you doing in here?"_ She asked, furiously quiet. Harry looked from her to the breakfast dishes he was elbow-deep in washing, not quite able to blank his face of an 'are you dumb or what?' expression.

He hand _itched_ to slap it off of him and she was satisfied to see him flinch as her arm twitched.

"Well stop it. Sit down in the corner and _don't make any noise_. An important guest has come to see me and if you go mucking it up, _so help me_."

He took the threat with an absent nod, removing his arms from the sink as quietly as he could - a disk clacked and she shot him a narrow-eyed look of fury that promised a full _two_ weeks in the cupboard - before drying them on a dishtowel and creeping over to a corner.

She put some glasses on their best silver-plated tray to hide the scuffle the menace made as he slid down the wall. Next came a jug of pink lemonade from the fridge - thank _goodness_ she'd forgotten to bring it to tea yesterday - and she dithered over whether to add some biscuits or not before deciding that it was better to say she was fresh out than put them out and later remember they were only supposed to be served with tea.

"Here we are." She swanned back into the livi-the _parlour_, tray set down upon the coffee table as gracefully as she could. "Please do help yourselves."

Nobody moved as she took her seat. At first she thought they were just waiting on her politely but as all three continued to ignore the glasses she'd set out for them, she panicked. During high tea, the hostess was supposed to serve her guests before herself - and this man was famous! Had probably had tea with the _Queen_ or even just lemonade and here she was inviting them to serve _themselves_?

Cheeks flaming, she quickly poured them all a glass.

Small pink droplets splashed out onto the tray. She pretended not to see.

"Now then," she continued, cheerful to the point of shrillness and steadfastly not paying attention as her guests continued to ignore the offered refreshments. "what _can_ I do for you?"

"You could sign these for me." The blonde man said frankly, still smiling but… tighter now. The woman - ugh, red hair, she must be a bitch just like Lily - opened a sleek briefcase and withdrew a small stack of papers. All of them had spaces to sign and several were stamped with impressive seals - some holographic and one even in _wax_.

"Oh of course." She simpered as the woman handed her a pen. She'd been _right_! She had a huge inheritance coming to her and who was the winner _now_ Lily? It wasn't the stupid girl who'd gone off to magic school and married a mop-headed idiot only to get _murdered_ by some other freak, no. It was sensible, plain old Petunia who kept a _normal_ life and _normal _husband and focused on being a good wife and mother and would now be rich enough to… to…

She hadn't paid attention as she'd signed the first two pages but the rather large words topping the third 'Revocation of custodial rights' caught her eye.

"…What?" She asked, flicking back to the first two - an agreement to hold confidential anything said, seen, heard or learned during this visit and an acknowledgment that her legal rights had been explained to her and she was acting under no coercion.

Boilerplate stuff, the sort that Vernon had in all his contracts… except…

She flicked to the other pages. There were four separate documents all to do with _Harry. _Confirmation of transfer of guardianship, permission for a blood test, voluntary refusal of any and all monetary or property parts of his estate and worst of all a _confession of willful neglect and abuse_ with space for her to fill in further details.

"Don't worry if you can't remember everything you've ever done to your nephew just yet." The woman comforted her with a smile. "My partner and I are _very _good at helping people remember things they'd rather forget."

For the first time, Petunia looked at her properly. Then the other man, who'd she'd almost hit with the door. They were… nobodies. Just… people. But not attendants, more like… government people. In suits. And, the blonde man…

She looked at him without the veil of attraction and excitement.

Steve 'Captain America' Rogers looked back, smile nowhere to be seen. Hadn't she spent weeks cooing over the photos of him with the other girls? Hadn't she cut several out and pasted them into a scrapbook like she'd used to go in her teens? _How had she not recognised him immediately_? Did the costume make that much difference?

Why was he here… for _Harry_?

She swallowed again, dry mouthed.

"…_What?_" She croaked.

"It's very simple." Captain America leaned forwards, thin veneer of gentility falling completely away.

"The boy you know as Harry Potter is in fact _my_ _son_, adopted by the Potters when he was only two months old. As soon as I found out about him, I came looking. _I was very unhappy with what I found_."

Petunia squeaked. Captain Rogers leaned back.

"My associates and I have gathered more than sufficient evidence to get Harry removed from your care." He explained coldly. "But frankly? That would take time none of us want - and I don't trust you or your husband with Harry for even the small amount of time it would take for a court to order his removal. So. Instead, we'll do this… quietly. You're the only guardian on record for Harry so you will sign him over to me, now - pending a blood test which I will get done and filed with these papers. Once I have custody of Harry, I will leave and I will never return."

Blue eyes bored into her, turning a promise into a threat.

"But… but…" She sputtered a few more times.

"But… you're _Captain America!_" She cried. The 'you can't do this' went unspoken.

"I'm a father first." Steve Rogers shot that notion down. "And there is nothing I wouldn't do, to protect my son. Now," he pushed the papers and pen back to her.

"Sign. Please."

_DoB F_

Aunt Petunia was shaking when she came back in. She made as if to haul him up by his arm - then _flinched _back away from him as a shadow appeared in the doorway.

Harry glanced over, uneasily rising to his feet and torn between annoyed and upset that despite being as quiet as he could, Aunt Petunia's guests obviously knew about him _now_ - and it was her fault! But _he'd_ still be punished, he knew.

She gestured sharply at him. She wanted him to go into the living room? But…

The person standing in the door - a pretty lady with short red curls and a kind smile - held out a hand for him while saying… something. He couldn't stop himself from trying to _see_ what she was saying, eyes dropping to her lips before he caught himself and looked away.

He edged past her and entered the living room.

A _huge_ man was just standing up from one of the chairs, a less-big but still bulky man leaning against the wall behind him.

Harry glanced between them all. The leaning man looked vaguely interested in whatever was going on, Aunt Petunia was white-faced and shooting him hateful looks and the red-haired lady shifted to stand in between them - smiling again at Harry as she did.

The large man… he just looked sad. And angry. And… something. Something he didn't recognise except that there was a desperate edge to it and if there was one thing he _did_ know, it was desperation.

The man said something to him. Harry refused - _refused_ - to look like that dumb retard kid everyone said he was, so he folded his arms and kept his eyes on the other man's and not his lips, even though the red haired lady being so close was making him uncomfortable and the leaning man was watching him like a particularly interesting bug.

Maybe they were from the school, come to see if he was _too stupid_ to attend, just like Dudley wrote onto bits of paper shoved under his cupboard door.

He wanted to shout at them. To tell them how easy school was, how he'd been reading ahead for years and it was all so _babyish_. How he remembered things really easily, how he knew _so many_ words and how to spell them, even if he didn't know how to pronounce them because he couldn't _hear _them! Not himself and not anyone else trying to demonstrate.

He didn't care. He didn't care who they were or what they wanted. He would notlet them take school away from him. What else was there? Chores at home for the rest of his life? No. He _needed_ school. It might be easy and full of mean kids and teachers who didn't have time for him but he knew he needed their tests in order to get into high school and then university. And he _would_ get in. No matter what.

Leaning-man sad something then, pushing off the wall to- to sign?! Harry's eyes widened and he almost _almost_ signed back - before remembering his classmates mocking him by crossing their eyes and flailing their hands spastically. His teacher lifting an eyebrow like he was trying to be funny instead of trying to _communicate_. He'd spent a whole week studying a BSL book cover to cover, practicing the most common gestures and simple finger spelling until he had them all down, thrilled and excited at first to have found a language he and normal people could both use, to be able to _talk_ again.

But no.

He shook his head furiously, glaring to hide the tears prickling at the corner of his eyes and fisted his hands defiantly.

The big man moved forward and he fought to stay still. He'd flinched once when the postman had been behind him suddenly (he'd just been startled, he hadn't heard him coming) and Aunt Petunia had later boxed his ears so hard he'd almost passed out from the pain.

The big man just lowered himself to one knee, slow and careful, pulling a pocket book out of his jacket along with a small half-chewed pencil. As he opened the book to a blank page, Harry spotted pages and pages of random sketches. A street sign shaded by a wind-blown tree. A skyline of city buildings. Someone who looked an awful lot like the nearby red-haired lady, asleep on a desk with a small line of drool escaping her mouth.

Then the man was writing onto an empty page, hesitating often and crossing some words out. Eventually, he handed it over. His eyes were… worried. Like… like he was… scared maybe?

Of _him_?

He glanced at the page.

**Hello Harry. My name is **

**Steve Rogers. This might **

**be a bit of a shock, but**

**I'm your biological dad. **

**I just found out and, I'm **

**hoping, you'll come back **

**home with me.**

This was… a joke. A lie.

Had to be.

Except Aunt Petunia wasn't laughing - she was shaking. And the three guests were all dressed very nicely - too rich to bother being mean to some random kid. Even leaning-guy wasn't looking at him like he was an interesting bug anymore, but more like someone he maybe cared about a bit and… and the blonde man.. Steve Rogers… he…

Harry looked up but couldn't make eye contact. His gaze skittered away, refocusing on the words written so neatly out for him.

"I'm deaf." He said blankly, the first words he'd spoke in _years_ that weren't 'Sorry Aunt Petunia/Uncle Vernon'. It was a stupid thing to say but he couldn't _think_ of anything else _to _say. What else _was_ there anyway, but a disclaimer of the single worst aspect about him? Being deaf made everyone hate him, made them think he was stupid and slow or just difficult. Even his own family was more irritated by his deafness than he himself.

The man - Mr Rogers - cautiously tugged the paper back.

_There we go then. My mistake, sorry kid, let's go everyone._

A few seconds later, it was pushed back into his cold limp hand.

He took it, read it, struggled to believe it.

**Doesn't matter.**

**You're my son. I'll love**

**you until the day I die. **

**I'll always do my best to **

**be a good dad. I promise. **

**I PROMISE**

Harry had imagined a moment like this since before he could even read. Someone would come, say they were his parent, take him away from the Dursleys. He'd imagined leaping into their arms, hugging and being hugged, maybe being carried out on their shoulders as all of Privet Drive watched him go and realised that he _did_ have parents who loved him and they'd come to get him at last.

He hadn't dreamed like that he was seven. But… here he was… living that dream. And all he could do, was…

Nod.

Something bright and brilliant flooded Mr Roger's expression, more than a smile, something no-one had ever looked at him with before. He shifted on his knee, arms half-lifting as if to grab him (maybe _hug_ him?) before he changed his mind and carefully extended a giant hand to him instead.

Harry stared at it. It was calloused and slightly sweaty and definitely too real to be something he'd dreamed up.

Clutching the little pocket book and it's impossible message in his left hand, he took the man's - his _father's_ - offered hand with his right. Long, warm-hot fingers closed over his own. His father's hand almost hid _his_ entirely, so huge that it swamped him.

It should have made him feel small like Uncle Vernon. There was strength in these hands, strength which Harry had only ever experienced as a swat or a shove or an occasionally bodily _throw_.

But… the way his hand was held? Firm, but not hard. Gentle, but not soft. It was… kind of like maybe. For _once_. This would be a strength used to _protect_ him, not hurt.

Maybe.

It was a nice dream, anyway.

**Fin, for now.**

Written in a marathon effort over fifteen hours plus another day editing. I have no real plan for more but I do hope to get around to Tony, the cause of Harry's deafness and an eventual happy ending eventually.

I expect _njchrispatrick_ will get there first though.;)


End file.
